[I Love Cookiemonster]

What a crappy story. Most characters just get introduced without a back story or even knowing who they are. how the hell did nico know george was in prison. or even that he was adventuring again. And the lame ending OMFG. I thought TSD ending was bad. how the hell did mark came with all those gunmen. and why did the cardinal or the monks with the guns at the end did nothing while george is bashing up the arc. they just stood there. and who the hell was this brother gregory that sudenly shows up. WTF. and that stupid waither. All in all it's my least favorite BS. I don't even feel the need for a 5th part.

I need a drink.

I just realised i diden't even mention the many technical flaws.

[Rjupiter]

very convoluted story to say the least. better lines in previous BS. to many plot holes and convenient "happening" for me liking.

tech flaws, well there were enough to make it a bit bothersome and the control were crap and my biggest nit pick would be the camera angle or lack there of. Basically sloppy and lazy coding on the part of the company to not make the environment more interactive and panoramic. can be done and has been done better and with CPU and system usage and mouse sluggishness. basically a bit of mess engine/programming wise.

Also like everyone else I hate hated the ending. I swear I blinked and next thing I knew I was looking at the credit. WHAT?!? What happened with this game?

[bored]

The game was ok,but I think the ending is very important in the way you rember a game.And the ending was very very disapointing

[bored]

Originally Posted by I Love Cookiemonster

What a crappy story. Most characters just get introduced without a back story or even knowing who they are. how the hell did nico know george was in prison. or even that he was adventuring again. And the lame ending OMFG. I thought TSD ending was bad. how the hell did mark came with all those gunmen. and why did the cardinal or the monks with the guns at the end did nothing while george is bashing up the arc. they just stood there. and who the hell was this brother gregory that sudenly shows up. WTF. and that stupid waither. All in all it's my least favorite BS. I don't even feel the need for a 5th part.

I need a drink.

I just realised i diden't even mention the many technical flaws.

EXACTLY It seems they made this game for 10 year old

[lopo]

well for ppl who have ended this one

i hoped better ending but it was pretty good ... great games as always by the story and places but the keyboard controlling was terroble and it lagged in pheonix the movie clips in it lagged like hell and some of the time it even didnt say eny words only can read them on the puttom of the screen ... lots of bugs in so big game in disc size

Edit:

Originally Posted by HeinzHarald

Just thought I'd mention I've played it for 7 hours and havn't experienced any crashes, "stickyness", or black cutscenes. The only bugs I've noticed have been hotspots that failed to disappear when they should (you could highlight but not click them).

Every once in a while George isn't too good at "pathfinding" when you point and click, and end up standing still looking like a big question mark. But much of the time I find his pathfinding better than in most 2.5D adventures. I don't exclusively use PnC though, so it might be worse than what I've noticed.

the game crashed for me only when i where in game and used the alt+tab to look hints in some time when i where stuck but when i but the game in the place where is options save load and so on then it didnt crash ... then if i moved around the place i got stuck behind anna and behind everithing the game is so stuped it cant go around the place u must point where to go when u need to go around something and the place where was that map on the tresure room u point on londin and then on the top one it does not go straight in there but it makes a sircule and goes around of something ... and in the tresure room i didnt get to c all the places cus the camera sucks so damn much i dont think that graphics where good mby cus i have old gfx but i dont think that matters that much if the game had no troble of installing ... well i played on resolution 1024x768 to ... in some part i laught my a** off when there was some cutscane cus of the graphics ...and the 4'th or third puzzle with the crosses in the end i looked manuscript for clus and looked the hint place and nothing didnt get it there was not enough clues to solwe that one in my oppinion ... i hope they dont make 5'th of the game cus the game was good only 1'st and second ...

one thing more and it's the text u allways must listen it u cant skip it that was annoing cus when game crashed and u forgot to save then u needed to listen the pointless text all over what sucked ... the demo part i needed to listen the stuped salami text two ore more times

[pitogiros]

i just finished the game , enjoyed the puzzles it felt like solving iq tests for mensa , the models were a bit crappy IMO although the textures were okay even though it was clear which objects were interactable they stuck out like thorns from the graphics. worst part the bomb in the appartment, i mean come on you have 10 minutes time and you must go over dialogs with mark

Spoiler:

anyway for the riddle with the crosses towards the end it was rather obvious
the crosses in each line rotated with a distinct angle 45/unknown/135 so the second line must be 90 degrees and the manuscript depicted the three missing tiles so voila

p.s. worst ending ever

[RLacey]

Originally Posted by pitogiros

i just finished the game , enjoyed the puzzles it felt like solving iq tests for mensa , the models were a bit crappy IMO although the textures were okay even though it was clear which objects were interactable they stuck out like thorns from the graphics. worst part the bomb in the appartment, i mean come on you have 10 minutes time and you must go over dialogs with mark

I thought that the bomb timer was actaully a smaller countdown than ten minutes, but that it only started after you began tinkering with the bomb itself. Either that or I was just extremely lucky to get the timing right.

[Alfredo]

I've just finished the game too, and my overal impression is good. Ok, the ending kinda sucked, but there were some great locations that were really fun to play, like Phoenix.
Certain puzzles were way too easy, others way too hard. I had to use the hint system three times (one time because of a bug). For example, the one with the shields of those knights. Even when looking in the walkthrough, I still don't understand how that thing works (if someone could please tell me).
There was indeed way too many random stuff going on, too much story pushed in a medium sized game.
And I hate those loading times, especially when you die. The only ones that were great was when you got in the Vatican by day, in the garden.

All in all, I think it's a good game. It's fun, and George is still hillarious. The graphic was rather good. Of course, could have been better. But it wouldn't really be Broken Sword if they started with Oblivion graphics. It needs that comic look over it. I think the story is good, and I had a lot of fun playing the game. Also, Oblivion had the same problem as Broken Sword 4 when it was first released. Even on a really great PC, it would be slowing down to a snail after a while. But Oblivion released a patch for it, I'm not sure if they will release patches for Broken Sword - Angel of Death. At least there are no patches for the other Broken Sword games.

I had problems with the sound disappearing under a sentence. Sometimes the actors started moving before the conversation was over, so the texted conversation said that the person said something it was impossible for that person to say, since the guy he was talking to had already started moving. I didn't have much problems at the beginning, but the later in the game I came, the more bugs there were. Typical of what happens in games were they spent a lot of time bug testing the first part of the game, but didn't have time to bug test the game from start to end enough times.

There were annoying bugs with the gameplay from the beginning. When I stand towards a wall, and push on the button on the wall around the corner, please don't stand there and try to walk the wall down. * Sigh * even Broken Sword 1 had that problem fixed. Also, why couldn't there be a action button on the keyboard? Why can't I use the keyboard to activate objects?

When I was walking fast to either side, the camera had to move faster, and it started stuttering a little. Not enough for me to be annoyed, but it's an example of poor coding, since my graphics card is way better than what they require.

Third, what was up with that 100% CPU usage thing? Is it because I got AMD and it said Intel was requirement in the readme file? Anyway, it shouldn't blow up to 100% when my CPU is at least 1 GHz better than what they ask for. Many people use AMD these days. They have really narrowed the specifications down. What's up with that XP only support?what was awesome about the other BS games, it was the fact that they can be run on practically any PC. I'm pretty sure you can still get BS1 and BS2 up and running. Probably 3 too, with a bit of thinkering...

All in all, I would give it a 8 out of 10. A great game, but if they only had spent another few months fixing the bugs, or made some application that could auto set compat.ini and custom.ini according to your PC, this game would at least get an 9 from me. The reason it won't get a 10, is because I didn't get the Broken Sword feeling that I got from BS1 and BS3. There were fewer really funny jokes, and you didn't really get to know the people you met before you suddenly were rushing off to somewhere new. I hardly remember the map of New York before we went across the sea... Also, what was that with people popping up everywhere?? They never explained how Archie got into the popes private stash and many other things. I was hoping this game would clear up some questions I have walked around with since Broken Sword 1. But no, instead they added more questions. I'm glad I bought this game, but if they ever make a fifth installment, please PLEASE spend more time working out the bugs. Don't just throw it out on the market when it's still in beta stage. I don't know. Maybe it was just that this game got too darn big with too much fancy graphics to keep all the bugs at bay.

[oerhört]

I can only speak for myself, but I loved the game. The controls and the camera could have used some work, and the animation wasn't always up to scratch, but nevertheless, I think I found this the most entertaining Broken Sword adventure yet.

Interesting question time: Apart from the controls, is there a reason why Shadow of the Templars should be considered better than Angel of Death?

[Milad241]

I just finished the game!
it was good but not great.it had many problems :
-controls were bad
-graphic was average
-story had plot holes
-ending was not satisfying
-some puzzles were really annoying
-and many many many bugs!

Originally Posted by oerhört

Interesting question time: Apart from the controls, is there a reason why Shadow of the Templars should be considered better than Angel of Death?

how can you compare these two games!
first broken sword had great story,great puzzles ,superb graphics and music
but this one!

After checking out the forums over at Revolution Software Ltd, it turns out that Sumo Digital did the actual programming. Revolution Software Ltd only designed the game. I think the strong parts of the game is the design, but poor programming and poor knowledge of the past games makes the actual consept of the game not as good as it could be.

Of course, if I had never played Broken Sword 1, 2( or 3?) this would be a great adventure game. They don't make many games like this anymore. But since I know how great a Broken Sword game can be, it's hard to settle for less and be happy with that. It's like eating stake for 10 years, and suddenly you only eat meatlike products made to taste like meat. No matter how good it tastes, it won't be satisifying, because I can still taste the difference.

But of course, it depends on preference. I know some people who thinks all Broken Sword games except the third are crap, because they don't like point and click or they don't like that style of adventure games. Some complain BS1 has way too much talking in it, and that you get lost in conversations. But for people like me, who wants to know all the detailes about what is going on, and who rather want some quiet parts between the heavy action areas, that was a great thing. It's why I was hoping they had united these two in this game, so both those who love BS1 and 2 and those who think the third is the best could be happy. Unfortunately the attempt is half-hearted, and I was really annoying with having to switch between running with the keyboard and pointing with the mouse. If they had only added an interact button to the keyboard, or made it easier to use the mouse without getting stuck, it would have been perfect.

I sure hope they release a patch for the bugs at least. Just playing the game without any bugs would make the game so much more fun. Looks like the amount of problems people have are very up and down. Seems like Sumo have spent too much time on making the game work great on some system, and forgotten to make sure it works well on the average system, or even above average systems. But after all, I would still rather play this game than most games that are released these days, so I still think it's a rather good game. Just isn't Revolution quality, so you know it's not the normal team who did all parts of the game when you play it. This reminds me of another game released too soon because they had too tight deadlines(maybe because of aMBX?). Also, the game is a little all over the place. I don't really feel I get the idea where they are going or what they are actually trying to pull.

[oerhört]

Originally Posted by Milad241

how can you compare these two games!

Well, because they feel about the same to me, all things considered.

Originally Posted by Milad241

first broken sword had great story

Yes, but was it really all that better than the story in The Angel of Darkness?

Originally Posted by Milad241

great puzzles

Why are the puzzles in BS1 better than those in BS4? I found most of BS4 puzzling to be just as good as in BS1, if not better.

Originally Posted by Milad241

superb graphics

Agreed on this one, although BS4 often looks perfectly adequate.

Originally Posted by Milad241

and music

I feel the music in BS4 is just as good as in BS1, not to mention there's far more of it.

Originally Posted by Milad241

but this one!

Yeah, what about it?

Is it the sweet rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia I smell?

(I really should install BS1 again to put some more oomph to my arguments here -- it's been a while since last time.)

[Milad241]

Originally Posted by oerhört

I really should install BS1 again to put some more oomph to my arguments here -- it's been a while since last time.

I agree with this part!

[oerhört]

Originally Posted by Milad241

I agree with this part!

But you refuse to comment on the actual questions I asked?

[Foster's]

...is it wrong of me.. to not want to save Nico at the end there..? I mean, all right, it could mean the angel of death would kill everyone.. but still..


Anyway, I don't think the game really was that bad when it came to the main plot. A great twist, and at least the main characters.. except Nico.. was pretty well developed. But, imo, the problem with this game, like the boxes in the last one, was the utterly and completily unbelievable plot- items and.. well.. sidequests (yes, what else can you call them?). Like, oh, I see - a picture of a Nun in a doorway near the vatican, and a subway- ticket! Let's go to the vatican and inspect the wafer- factory - without knowing whether it's actually the right doorway, or even if it was, that this is where /something/ is!

Or - OK, I've exhausted every possible option so far, and there's nothing useful or otherwise left to do - including reading the manuscript backwards while chanting the revelation- chapters and verses corresponding to the number of flame- tongues that can be inverted by three times 36 degrees and end up at the next flame in the picture, by going linearly in a spiral counter- clockwise direction until we end up at the other end. - Oh, I seee! I need to ask Mark about the black cat pen in order to get to the next, utterly unintroduced and apparently completily insignificant location! And AHA! Making the Lucy Chu photo more "personal" means to fake a signature on the back. And to distract the Nun that for whatever reason just stands there on the balcony, I'll just have to rattle the shutters a bit, and she'll come running - how obvious and necessary for the story and the gameplay isn't that!

Really, this puts the DaVinci Code to shame...

lol. That's true. It was a little of this you mention on the first two games as well, but not as much. I remember in Broken Sword 1, to even be able to go to Ireland you first had to do research about the stuff you saw on the manuscript. Then you had to find out what it meant. Then find out where the tripod in the museum(that you found from doing the research) was digged up. It was this entire logical chain before he went on a trip to any place. Something that at least made me feel like: If I was him, and was just as little afraid of my own life, I would have done the same to find out this stuff.

In the last game he seems more like an crazy adventure seeker who just seeks all over the place, and hopes luck will help him find gold. He seemed that way a bit in Broken Sword 2 as well. I still don't remember the reason why they went to quaramonthe(hopefully that's correct spelling), but I think it was only based on a paper saying it would be an eclipse there and the statue he found when he rescued Nico. Also, that little kid kept mentioning it. I think also Nico had some information about the shipping to that place. Still, I wouldn't go to a place I never been to before because of so unreliable facts. What ticked me was that Cecil kept on saying how they had learned from their mistakes and that this would be much better than the third game. Instead it just seems like they have implemented all the irrational things you could possible find in the third game and also partly in the second game. For me, only the first Broken Sword is the really true Broken Sword. But the others are fun too. This one included.

[oerhört]

I didn't feel the fourth game was especially bad in the regard you're talking about. The pen, for example ... it came out of nowhere, but it was hinted at, and at that particular moment, George actually was searching for clues.

The thing is, I think maybe it depends a bit on how much you need to believe in the story for it to be fun. I think BS4 is meant to be more like an entertaining, somehow archetypal adventure, than a dead serious story about "real" events.

As far as I remember, the first game is excellently structured, but that alone doesn't make it more fun. I think BS4 has an edge when it comes to variety, music and the dynamic feel it gets from the 3D shots, and I believe this edge is enough to make up for what BS1 has in style (graphics) and plot consistency. I also foundt the main "revelation" of BS4 to be more exciting than anything you find out in the first game.

Very entertaining game to me, at least. 7/10 or thereabouts. And I think I'd give the first game about the same.

[Fop]

Originally Posted by marsan

Third, what was up with that 100% CPU usage thing? Is it because I got AMD and it said Intel was requirement in the readme file? Anyway, it shouldn't blow up to 100% when my CPU is at least 1 GHz better than what they ask for. Many people use AMD these days.

Eh? All games try to render as many frames per second as they possibly can, ending up with 100% CPU usage.

[Captain Blondebeard]

I dont understand how the last 2 games have had some darn good storys and then goes on and pisses the ending away. I have not played this yet but from what I hear about the ending I am not happy.